He and his siblings wanted their father out of the hospital so they could be together for Christmas.

Their father, Robert DeLeon Jr., died Dec. 13 from swine flu. He was 27.

Jared, his brothers Tommy, 11, Dante, 5, and sister Diamond, 4, were one of many families profiled in this year’s Caller-Times Children’s Christmas Appeal campaign. Their daddy, who was diagnosed with swine flu, had been in the hospital since September. Too young to visit in the intensive care unit, the children had not seen him since before he was admitted.

On Tuesday the children sat around their grandmother’s huge dining room table and looked at photos of their dad as a child.

“This was my daddy’s hat,” said Dante, showing off a picture of a Superman emblem. People called their daddy Superman, the kids said, because he was big and strong.

The DeLeon home is the only house on the block across the street from a small baseball diamond the family donated to the league. The large porch is worn from family barbecues and Easter celebrations. The yard is littered with evidence of grandchildren who love to spend time at momo and popo’s.

In the corner of the yard there is a treehouse. It was supposed to be for Robert’s kids. It was supposed to be another childhood memory he built with them. But much like his life, it sits in a far dark corner, unfinished.

“My daddy is in heaven,” Diamond said.

“He is building me a house there. And a clubhouse too. But for me, not for the boys.”

Apparently her brothers have told her the clubhouse out front was not for her. So in heaven she gets her own. She is sure of it.

And she is hopeful, too. Maybe, she told her grandparents, God will let daddy come home for Christmas.

Robert DeLeon Sr. always told his son he needed to slow down. Between work at the construction company, coaching youth football and baseball, being a husband and a father, a teammate and friend there was little time to take it easy.

For as long as his parents could remember he moved in fast forward.

“Can you imagine losing a son,” his mother Dianna DeLeon asks. “I keep asking myself what I could have done differently.... My husband says only God knows when you are born and when it is your time to leave. I guess it was just his time to go. I guess that’s why he lived his life so fast.”

His final request to his family, Dianna said, was that they watch over his children. Their mother only works part-time and relied on their dad to help out — especially around the holidays. Dianna worries that on top of everything else there will be no presents under the tree.

“I know that is not what Christmas is all about but...”

But she wants them to be happy. At least as happy as they can be given the situation.

Jared won’t talk about Christmas. But he will talk about a big house with trees and a clubhouse in heaven and a daddy who left too soon.